Copper pipes are widely used today as water conduits in residential and commercial buildings. Though they are normally well suited for this purpose, when they are filled with water in subfreezing conditions they become susceptible to rupturing or bursting when frozen water within them later melts and expands.
The most prevalent manner in which ruptured copper pipes are repaired is that known as sweat soldering. This is the same procedure generally used in joining pipes together in initially constructing a network of conduits to service as water lines. To sweat solder adjacent ends of two copper pipes together a copper sleeve is positioned over their ends so as to bridge the spacial gap between them. Solder is then applied about both ends of the sleeve and heated, as with an open flame, whereupon the solder melts and flows beneath and about the sleeve ends between the ends of the sleeves and the underlying pipes once the solder cools and solidifies a water-tight joint results. One such sweat joint is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,464,617.
As previously stated, the just described procedure is also used to repair previously constructed pipes that have become ruptured or fractured as from the effects of freezing. To repair such a ruptured pipe a plumber will ordinarily cut and remove the breached portion of the pipe. By doing this the plumber has, in effect, substantially reestablished a normal construction situation where the ends of two pipes are placed closely together in preparation for being initially joined by the sweat solder procedure previously discussed. In the case of a ruptured pipe, however, care must be exercised to remove all water from the area of the breach. Where residual water is present during the construction of the sweat joint, the water tends to cool the pipe while the solder is being heated thereby making it difficult to form a good solder joint. Residual water is normally removed from this area, after the pipe has been drained, by heating the pipe with a torch to evaporate the water.
The just described procedure commonly used in repairing broken copper pipes consumes a substantial period of time since the breached portion of the pipe must be severed and removed, a sleeve positioned so as to bridge the gap formed by the removed section, and a solder joint formed on each end of the sleeve. The labor involved in removing residual water can be quite substantial, particularly where the pipe is in a relatively low area since water tends to drain to the area of repair from adjacent higher portions of the pipe as the water in this area is removed. In addition, it is often difficult to set the sleeve in place since one pipe end must be moved momentarily out of axial alignment with the other pipe end in order to pass the sleeve initially over one of the pipe ends. Though during initial construction this may have presented no problem since the pipes were not yet completely hung, for repair a mounting bracket may have to be temporarily removed.
It thus is seen that a need remains for apparatuses and methods for repairing broken copper pipes that overcome or at least ameliorate the just described problems. It is to the provision of such that the present invention is primarily directed.